It’s 1715 on the Bahamian island of Santa Compana, the first functioning democracy in the Americas, where the diabolical pirate Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard (John Malkovich), reigns over a rogue nation of thieves, outlaws and miscreant sailors. Part shantytown and part Marauder’s paradise, this is a place like no other on Earth – and a mounting threat to international commerce.

Teach/Blackbeard has set his sights on the world’s first Longitude Chronometer, a device that will change society, sea-trade and global business. In a massive attack on an English vessel, Blackbeard attempts to steal the device from the British government, however, Tom Lowe, an English spy working undercover as the ship’s surgeon destroys the chronometer before it can fall into his hands. Taken as prisoner to Santa Compana island, Lowe must find a way to reassemble the precious device, all while trying to unfold Blackbeard’s plan… a plan that includes a threat to the English throne even worse than pirates…

“Crossbones,” from the award-winning creator of “Luther,” Neil Cross, and award-winning executive producers Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald (“Gladiator,” “Men in Black”), is an extraordinary action adventure with an unexpected moral center where one can’t be sure whether the pirates or the British crown are the villains.